Stallings/Disney: The Skeleton Dance (Silly Symphony)

January 12, 2007

[Notes from Wikipedia]

The Skeleton Dance is a 1929 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced and directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks. In the film, a group of skeletons dance and make music around a spooky graveyard. It was the first entry in the Silly Symphonies series. The musical score was adapted from the Saint-Saëns compostion Danse Macabre by Carl Stalling, who suggested the idea for a series of musical one-shot cartoons to Disney. It is notable for being the first animated cartoon to use non post-sync sound. Animation from this short was later reused in the Mickey Mouse short “Haunted House” in which Mickey, having taken shelter in a Haunted House, is forced to play music for the dancing skeletons. The Skeleton Dance was also referenced to on an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy where Grim, having been turned into a 1930’s era cartoon character, leads several other skeletons in dance.

The cartoon was created in black and white on standard 1.33:1 35mm film.

In 1994 it was voted #18 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.